A New Look at the Muslim Brotherhood in America

By Douglas Farah

While the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Islamist groups debate whether to cut off contact with the FBI and other US government institutions, the Hudson Institute has just published a comprehensive report that makes it clear why such ties are not healthy.

It is worth remembering that the FBI, as the Investigative Project reported, cut off contact with CAIR, the primary MB legacy organization amid mounting concern about the Muslim advocacy group's roots in a Hamas-support network.

The decision to end contacts with CAIR was made quietly last summer as federal prosecutors prepared for a second trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), an Islamic charity accused of providing money and political support to the terrorist group Hamas, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

CAIR and its chairman emeritus, Omar Ahmad, were named un-indicted co-conspirators in the HLF case. Both Ahmad and CAIR's current national executive director, Nihad Awad, were revealed on government wiretaps as having been active participants in early Hamas-related organizational meetings in the United States. During testimony, FBI agent Lara Burns described CAIR as a front organization.

The FBI cutoff badly hurt CAIR and other legacy groups, because their main currency in collecting money and portraying themselves as the voice of the Muslim community in the United States, depends almost entirely on trumpeting its access to the U.S. government.

Now, Steven Merley's piece explores both the origin of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, as well as its ties to the European Brotherhood.

It is a good and timely reminder (and should be widely read by policy makers in the Obama administration, as well as gatekeepers across the government) of why cutting off CAIR's access was long overdue. My full blog is here.